A Little M$ Bashing

So there's two kinds of companies. One just markets the hell out of crap. And then there's the mutant version of that, Microsoft which, without it's monopoly would be nothing and it's God-awful OS forced on us all. I mean who by choice would really want to deal with the high maintenance mediocrity of the Win OS?

Ugh.

Anyway:

According to International Data Corporation’s 2006 white paper, “The Economic Impact of Microsoft Windows Vista in the United States,” Windows Vista was supposed to generate 100,000 new jobs and $70 billion in revenue for U.S. companies in 2007, revitalizing and advancing the long mutualism between the tech industry and Microsoft’s near-monopoly on desktop operating systems. For every dollar of Vista-related revenue pocketed by Microsoft, $18 was to be generated for the technology industry as a whole. “If you add up all of the spending on hardware and software that run on Microsoft operating systems as well as all of the services around installing and maintaining Microsoft applications and solutions, you quickly come up with a number much bigger than Microsoft’s revenues,” the report claimed. “It grows even larger and more significant when compared to the subset of Microsoft revenues for operating systems.”

Quite a claim and one that should, perhaps, be revisited in light of news that fewer businesses plan to adopt Windows Vista than did seven months ago. According to a client survey by patch-management outfit PatchLink, only 2% using Windows have upgraded to Vista. Nine percent plan to roll it out in the next few months. And 87% have no plans to roll it out at all–at least not yet. Windows XP pretty much works and, unlike Vista, it plays well with the hardware and peripherals you already have.

Link. And the report is here.

And the people speak on the subject. (Consensus seems to be reaching a point that without a monopoly and being entrenched, M$ is on track for a little heartbreak.) Myself, if I was starting a small business wouldn't even think of a Win system but would go straight to Mac and avoid all the IT crap on top of all the necessary business activities. Why waste time maintaining a high maintenance system when I can have a low maintenance one? and FYI: yours truly spends more time working in Windows than Mac so my dislike of Windows is very well-earned....